


Love is on top, fucking pain

by arcadian_asgardian



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley's Plants (Good Omens), Crowley's Plants as a metaphor for Crowley's Issues, Crowley's issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ficlet, Fluff and Angst, Inspired by Music, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26162242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcadian_asgardian/pseuds/arcadian_asgardian
Summary: He hadn’t actually meant to smash the plant.Short oneshot about Crowley's trauma from Falling and how it impacts his relationship with Aziraphale, inspired by the song Central Park by Woodkid feat. Son Lux. Crossposted from my tumblr.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45





	Love is on top, fucking pain

**Author's Note:**

> The million leaves on the ~~St James’ Park~~ Central Park trees are popping  
> Open the champagne  
> There’s too much joy, there’s no stopping  
> Love is on top, fucking pain
> 
> (that ‘fucking’ is a verb. [listen to the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJRndO0ZkVw), it’s better heard. also, i arranged the [sheet music for piano](https://musescore.com/user/32898152/scores/6352019))

He hadn’t actually meant to smash the plant.

One second he was clenching it, scolding it viciously for the tendrils that were creeping beyond the boundaries of the pot, despite the severe pruning he’d meted out. _Why can’t you just stay in line? Do I have to tell you again?_ The next, the blasted thing was floundering on the floor amid a constellation of ceramic fragments and splattered soil, and Crowley had found his empty fingers clenching around thin air as an inferno of emotions hit him like a punch in the chest.

Oh, this again, he’d thought. More than 6,000 years, you’d think he’d have gotten over it by now. But the pain was back again.

Some days he liked the emotions. The rage that often filled him was certainly justified, and the power, the righteousness of that, sang through his veins and made him feel like he could kick the whole world in the balls. But most days, the pain of remembering just made him feel broken. Like the bad apple cast from the perfect bunch, rotting away from the core outwards. An unfixable, marred wreck of a being. Who could ever want, even love, that?

It had been one of those days. But this time, Aziraphale was there.

He’d felt himself sink slowly to the floor, like a puppet with its strings suddenly severed. Aziraphale rushed over, face alight with concern, and reached out for Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley’s body had seemed to act without his permission as he shoved the angel’s arm harshly - _too harshly_ \- away from him. He was somehow unable to speak as Aziraphale dithered next to him. Any words, explanation he might have given, sat unspoken in his head, blocked by a barrier of wrath and guilt and anguish.

Then Aziraphale had reached down and taken the plant up like it was Crowley’s very heart cradled in his hands. Crowley felt the organ in his chest flutter in synchrony as he watched the angel stroke the dirt from the ravaged leaves and then place it, so very gently, back onto the damp warm soil with the others. His heart had stopped beating completely when Aziraphale gazed up at him with a soft, understanding smile, and the pain had subsided a little.

Crowley asked him, later, as they lay together in the quiet dark, so close they seemed to share the same lungful of air. When Aziraphale gazed down at him with those sky-hewn blue eyes of his, tinged with awe and ever swirling with fondness, it felt as though he was staring into the core of Crowley’s being, through skin and sinew and bone, directly to the heart of him. Divine, but terrifying, to lay so flayed open beneath him.

_How?_ he’d asked, not hopeful for the answer.

_How can you love me when I am so damaged. You are surely meant for more than this._

A pained darkness crossed the angel’s face and his eyebrows knitted together.

_I want nothing more than you, my dear,_ he’d responded. _I wish I could heal you of this pain, but I can’t. But I can love it. Love_ you. _Every part of you. All that you are._

Crowley turned away. _You shouldn’t._

_I will love you as I see fit, thank you very much,_ came the reply. _You are all mine._

Aziraphale had leaned closer still then, and raked his eyes appraisingly across Crowley’s face.

_These freckles are mine,_ he’d whispered, and pressed a kiss to Crowley’s forehead.

Crowley held his breath and his eyes flicked closed as he felt the angel’s soft lips move down his face and brush against the back of his eyelids.

_These eyes are mine._

Aziraphale trailed his fingertips, feather-lightly, over that part of Crowley’s chest beneath which there was a flustered thumping.

_This heart is mine,_ the angel had said. _Its pain is mine._

_Give it all to me. I will love it when you cannot. I will love you, regardless._

Then he’d smiled into Crowley’s neck and decorated him with more adoring kisses, enveloped him all night with love until the soreness in his soul was soothed and forgotten.

From then on, Aziraphale reminded him often, whenever the angel seemed to deem he needed it.

_I love you,_ he’d say.

_It’s alright._

Frequently, _be gentle with yourself, my dear._

And Crowley listened, and tried, and gradually, he came to believe the angel’s words. His days slowly seemed to become lighter, as though a long storm was finally breaking.

The pain was still there - still flared up in him sometimes - but with Aziraphale by his side, it didn’t have a hold on him like it used to. These days a different kind of madness seemed to reign over him. His was a steady diet of kisses like champagne and loving glances like shafts of sunlight, soft, deliberate touches that set his skin aflame. As he lay tangled again between his angel’s legs, he found that smiles came so easily to him now. Above the pain, there was now so much joy. Bursting, supernova-ing inside him, utterly overtaking him. He couldn’t have stopped it if he’d wanted to.


End file.
